Television Review: Bad Medicine (Homicide: Life on the Street, S5X04, 1996)

Bad Medicine (S05E04)

Airdate: 25 October 1996

Written by: David Simon
Directed by: Kenneth Fink

Running Time: 46 minutes

The labyrinthine relationship between Baltimore’s drug trade and its homicide rate has long underpinned the narrative fabric of Homicide: Life on the Street. While the series routinely explores violence tethered to addiction, overdoses themselves rarely serve as direct plot catalysts, with deaths more often stemming from territorial disputes or gang reprisals. Bad Medicine subverts this pattern by thrusting the city’s heroin crisis into the foreground, framing a public health catastrophe as a calculated act of sabotage. The episode’s premise—a lethal batch of heroin flooding the streets—offers a grim departure from the show’s usual focus on interpersonal violence, instead spotlighting the systemic rot fuelling Baltimore’s underworld.

The central narrative unfolds with chilling efficiency. A sudden spike in overdose deaths prompts initial confusion: dozens of addicts perish within days, their bodies discovered in squats, alleyways, and their homes. Toxicology reports reveal the heroin supply has been laced with a scopolamine, suggesting deliberate contamination. The Homicide Unit, including Detective Meldrick Lewis, initially resists involvement, arguing that overdoses fall under the purview of public health authorities. This jurisdictional ambiguity dissolves when the body of a mid-level dealer with ambitions of usurping drug lord Luther Mahoney is found riddled with bullets. Lewis’s investigation intersects with Detective Teri Steevers (played by Toni Lewis) of the Narcotics Unit, whose street-level intelligence exposes victim’s scheme: he had been distributing tainted heroin disguised as Mahoney’s product to discredit his rival. Mahoney retaliates by ordering his execution, then eliminates the hitman to erase evidence. Lewis and Steevers, aided by Steevers’ heroin-addicted informant Vernon Troy (played by Akili Prince), recover the poisoned stash, but Mahoney evades prosecution. Troy’s subsequent murder—presumably orchestrated by Mahoney—underscores the futility of their efforts, leaving Lewis to confront the limits of justice in a city where power resides with those ruthless enough to wield it.

The episode’s procedural rigour is complicated by Detective Mike Kellerman’s sidelining. A federal probe into his alleged corruption during his tenure in the Arson Unit forces Lieutenant Al Giardello to suspend him, stripping the unit of a tenacious investigator. Kellerman’s suspension—framed as a pragmatic necessity—subtly questions the moral compromises inherent in policing, a theme that would later unravel in his character arc.

Frank Pembleton’s storyline, meanwhile, offers a poignant counterpoint to the episode’s cynicism. Still grappling with the aftermath of a stroke, he fails a firearms requalification test not due to poor marksmanship, but because his cognitive impairments prevent him from comprehending the instructor’s commands. The scene is a masterclass in understated tragedy: Pembleton, once the unit’s most incisive interrogator, reduced to silent frustration as his body betrays him. His decision to resign and trial Losartan, a new hypertension medication, signals both resignation and cautious hope—a rare moment of vulnerability in a series often defined by stoicism.

Less compelling is the ongoing saga of Brodie’s homelessness. After being ejected by Detective John Munch, he temporarily lodges with Tim Bayliss, their cohabitation strained by clashing tastes in cinema (Bayliss’s fondness for cartoons versus Brodie’s preference for documentaries). While intended to inject levity, the subplot feels contrived, reducing Brodie’s precarious existence to a narrative device for fish-out-of-water humour. His perpetual displacement—ostensibly a commentary on institutional neglect—instead reads as a lazy contrivance, undermining the episode’s otherwise unflinching realism.

Written by David Simon, Bad Medicine adheres to the series’ trademark authenticity, drawing from his journalistic chronicles of Baltimore’s decline. The downbeat conclusion—Mahoney’s impunity, Kellerman’s looming disgrace, Pembleton’s uncertain future—eschews tidy resolutions, mirroring the show’s commitment to moral ambiguity. Yet Simon’s script occasionally strains under its own ambitions. Brodie’s arc, in particular, clashes tonally with the main plot’s gravitas, while the reliance on coincidences (e.g., Troy’s convenient knowledge of the stash’s location) occasionally undermines the gritty verisimilitude.

Director Kenneth Fink’s approach is similarly uneven. While his handling of tense interrogations and crime-scene vignettes is assured, his penchant for stylised montages—set to anachronistically “edgy” 1990s alt-rock tracks—clashes with the series’ vérité aesthetic. A prolonged sequence of dead addicts being found by police, scored to a grunge-lite anthem, feels more like a relic of era-specific network TV than an organic narrative choice. These flourishes distract from the episode’s strengths, prioritising mood over substance.

Bad Medicine exemplifies Homicide’s strengths and weaknesses. Its unsparing portrayal of drug-war futility and institutional decay remains potent, anchored by strong performances and Simon’s ear for street-level dialogue. Yet its tonal missteps—Brodie’s jarring comic relief, Fink’s overzealous direction—reveal the challenges of balancing episodic storytelling with serialised character arcs. For all its flaws, the episode lingers as a stark reminder of the human cost of Baltimore’s addiction crisis, where justice is as elusive as a clean hit of heroin.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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